ALBERT

Description: The CARRIBA (Cloud, Aerosol, Radiation and tuRbulence in the trade wInd regime over BArbados) project with focus on trade wind cumuli over Barbados is introduced. The project is based on two one-month field campaigns in November 2010 (climatic wet season) and April 2011 (climatic dry season). Observations are based on helicopter-borne and ground-based measurements in a square of 100 km2 off the coast of Barbados. CARRIBA is accompanied by long-term observations at the Barbados Cloud Observatory located at the East coast of Barbados since early in 2010 and which provides longer-term context for the CARRIBA measurements. Deployed instrumentation and sampling strategy are presented together with a classification of the meteorological conditions. The two campaigns were influenced by different air masses advected from the Caribbean area, the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the African continent which led to distinct aerosol conditions. Therefore, pristine conditions with low aerosol particle number concentrations of ~100 cm3 were alternating with periods influenced by Saharan dust or aerosol from biomass burning resulting in comparable high number concentrations ~500 cm3. The later was originating from both, the Caribbean area and Africa. The shallow cumulus clouds responded to the different aerosol conditions with a wide range of mean droplet sizes and number concentrations. Effective radii in the range of 7 to 18 μm have been observed. Finally, the four leading topics of CARRIBA – Clouds, Aerosol, Radiation and tuRbulence – are motivated and illustrated by selected findings and measurement examples.

Description: The Fourth IPCC Assessment Report concluded that ice sheet flow models, in their current state, were unable to provide accurate forecast for the increase of polar ice sheet discharge and the associated contribution to sea level rise. Since then, the glaciological community has undertaken a huge effort to develop and improve a new generation of ice flow models, and as a result a significant number of new ice sheet models have emerged. Among them is the parallel finite-element model Elmer/Ice, based on the open-source multi-physics code Elmer. It was one of the first full-Stokes models used to make projections for the evolution of the whole Greenland ice sheet for the coming two centuries. Originally developed to solve local ice flow problems of high mechanical and physical complexity, Elmer/Ice has today reached the maturity to solve larger-scale problems, earning the status of an ice sheet model. Here, we summarise almost 10 yr of development performed by different groups. Elmer/Ice solves the full-Stokes equations, for isotropic but also anisotropic ice rheology, resolves the grounding line dynamics as a contact problem, and contains various basal friction laws. Derived fields, like the age of the ice, the strain rate or stress, can also be computed. Elmer/Ice includes two recently proposed inverse methods to infer badly known parameters. Elmer is a highly parallelised code thanks to recent developments and the implementation of a block preconditioned solver for the Stokes system. In this paper, all these components are presented in detail, as well as the numerical performance of the Stokes solver and developments planned for the future.

Description: Size-resolved and bulk activation properties of aerosols were measured at a regional/suburban site in the North China Plain (NCP), which is occasionally heavily polluted by anthropogenic aerosol particles and gases. A CCN (Cloud Condensation Nuclei) closure study is conducted with bulk CCN number concentration (NCCN) and calculated NCCN based on the aerosol number size distribution and size-resolved activation properties. The observed NCCN are higher than those observed in other locations than China, with average NCCN of roughly 2000, 3000, 6000, 10 000 and 13 000 cm−3 at supersaturations of 0.056, 0.083, 0.17, 0.35 and 0.70%, respectively. An inferred critical dry diameter (Dm) is calculated based on the measured NCCN and aerosol number size distribution assuming homogeneous chemical composition. This inferred cut off diameter varies in a wide range, indicating that it is impossible to predict NCCN with a fixed critical diameter. Size-resolved activation measurements show that most of the 300 nm particles are activated at the investigated supersaturations, while almost no particles of 30 nm are activated even at the highest supersaturation of 0.72%. The activation ratio increases with increasing supersaturation and particle size. The slopes of the activation curves for ambient aerosols are not as steep as those observed in calibrations with ammonium sulfate suggesting that the observed aerosols is an external mixture of more hygroscopic and hydrophobic particles. This conclusion is confirmed by hygroscopicity measurements performed during two intensive field studies in 2009. The calculated NCCN based on the size-resolved activation ratio and aerosol number size distribution correlate well with the measured NCCN, and show an average overestimation of 19%. Sensitivity studies of the CCN closure show that the NCCN for each supersaturation is well predicted with the campaign average of size-resolved activation curves. These results indicate that the aerosol number size distribution is critical in the prediction of possible CCN. The NCCN can be estimated with average activation curve, along with a well described aerosol number size distribution.

Description: Within the framework of the international cloud experiment "Hill Cap Cloud Thuringia 2010" (HCCT-2010), the influence of cloud processing on the activation properties of ambient aerosol particles was investigated. Particles were probed up- and downwind of an orographic cap cloud on Mt. Schmücke, which is part of a large mountain ridge in Thuringia, Germany. The activation properties of the particles were investigated by means of size-segregated Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) measurements at 3 to 4 different supersaturations. The observed CCN spectra together with the total particle spectra were used to calculate the hygroscopicity parameter κ for the up- and the downwind stations. The up- and downwind critical diameters and κ values were then compared for defined Cloud Events and Non Cloud Events. Cloud processing was found to significantly increase the hygroscopicity of the aerosol particles, with an average increase in κ of 50%. Mass spectrometry analysis and isotopic analysis of the particles show that the observed increase in hygroscopicity of the cloud-processed particles is due to an enrichment of nitrate and sulfate in the particle phase.